


Craving

by eluna



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Dark Eleven | Jane Hopper, Emotional Hurt, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Will Byers, Implied Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, M/M, Mike Wheeler Loves Eleven | Jane Hopper, Minor Violence, One-Sided Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, POV Will Byers, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Season/Series 03, Sad Will Byers, Will Byers Loves Mike Wheeler, Will Byers-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 08:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20239621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eluna/pseuds/eluna
Summary: Will knows that he owes her a debt. He knows that. But he looks at the way nobody talks about how Mike laughs, whenever Max says something that annoys Eleven and then always trips over her own feet, and something about Eleven seems really, really wrong to Will.





	Craving

**Author's Note:**

> New fandom, hey! As much as I loved ST3, I was very disappointed that the show seemed to completely forget about El's propensity to use her powers violently when she was unhappy in ST2, so I decided to fix it myself.

Nobody ever really introduces Will to Eleven. She’s just suddenly _there_—not all the time, not at school or the arcade or their D&D campaigns—but often enough, and always attached to Mike like a—a leech, or something. And Will gets it. He does. She’s saved the world twice now, and helped guide Mom and Hopper to find Will when he was trapped in the Upside Down back when Eleven didn’t even _know _him, and she has _superpowers_, for crying out loud: she’s a freaking badass, and Will knows that he owes her a debt. He knows that.

But he looks at the way nobody talks about how Mike laughs, whenever Max says something that annoys Eleven and then always trips over her own feet, and something about Eleven seems really, really wrong to Will.

Of course, Eleven has a good side to her, too, and when she smiles, Will can sort of see what Mike must see in her, in a secondhand sort of way. He wishes he couldn’t. The whole thing would be so much easier if Will couldn’t.

Mike starts leaving the group early, usually only a couple hours after school lets out, to follow Eleven back to Hopper’s in time for her curfew, and it makes Will miss him like a tangible thing. When the Mind Flayer had Will, Mike was _always _there, rushing to Will’s side and holding his hand and telling him stories about their friendship, and Will wants _that _Mike back, not this new one who’s always so flustered about Eleven and anxious to spend time with _her_, not with Will or Lucas or Dustin.

Of course, ever since Mike met Eleven, he’s been singularly focused on her—even for the whole 353 days that Hopper was holding Eleven hostage in his cabin. It was only when Will was in mortal danger again that Mike redirected his attention onto him. It almost makes Will wish he were sick with something—not because of the Mind Flayer, never again because of the Mind Flayer, but with cancer or something normal—to get Mike to look back at him and stay there.

So, yeah, Will is jealous, but it’s not just jealousy. It’s—it’s like—

It’s that time that Eleven snuck out to the arcade with the rest of the party, and Hopper found out from Mom and followed them there to come take her home, and Eleven interrupted his scream-whispering to grip him around the throat with her powers and just _squeeze _until Hopper went blue, until Hopper was scrabbling at his neck with his hands, his eyes bulging out of his head. Will didn’t see Eleven again for two whole weeks, and the next time she showed up at Mike’s house when they went there after school one day, nobody had anything to say about it.

“Doesn’t El scare you sometimes?” Will asks Max on a rare day that they’re alone together in the mall—Mike off with Eleven at Hopper’s, Dustin out with Steve, and Lucas tied up at a family function—because he thinks Max might be the only other person in their party who understands.

“What? I’m not _scared _of her,” says Max heatedly, and Will realizes belatedly that he’s offended her.

“No, I don’t mean it like that, I mean—she used her powers for good in a big way, but she uses them for evil in little ways all the time—against _you_, _all _the time. Doesn’t that… I don’t know, make you not want to be around her?”

Max doesn’t answer right away, twirling a lock of her hair around and around her finger. Then she says, “All my friends love her, and I don’t want to start anything with anybody. Besides, I bet they didn’t teach her anything in that lab for all those years she lived there about reining in your feelings and treating other people with respect. They sure as hell didn’t treat _her _with respect, and Mike says they rewarded her for cruelty.”

“But she lives in our world now,” Will insists. “She’s got to start learning our rules if she ever wants to be like everybody else and, you know, go where we go.”

Max raises an eyebrow at him. “Eleven saved you. I thought you hero-worshipped her just as much as Mike does.”

Will thinks about Mike—thinks about his earnest gaze and his cracking voice and his sweaty palm squeezing Will’s—and thinks he could cry, if he didn’t keep such tightly wound control over himself all the time. People have accused Will over and over again of being weak—a faggot—and maybe they’re right. They’re probably right. But for someone who’s supposed to be _so _sensitive, Will thinks he must be sorely lacking in the ability to empathize with others when the others in question are blocking Will from getting what he craves.


End file.
